


Fully Dressed

by cmshaw



Category: Good Omens - Gaiman & Pratchett, due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-14
Updated: 2004-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmshaw/pseuds/cmshaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But that is good advice," Crowley said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fully Dressed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afrai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrai/gifts).



> Posted from the prompt: "Leave me a drabble of backstory. It can be about anyone -- one of your characters, one of mine, someone else's, no-one's. Anyone."
> 
> Originally posted with the title "tricenquindictum instead of drabble...."

Crowley lurked resentfully in a town named after a moose -- and not just any moose, but a particular moose that the town founders had known rather more intimately than Aziraphale had intended when he'd suggested a nature theme for the settlement. Aziraphale had wanted to stop into the local soup kitchen 'just for a moment, dear' and had ended up handing out more bread than Crowley thought was strictly available for this sort of operation [1]. He was considering the possibility that a brawl might drag the angel back out again, and this teenaged boy looked appropriately sullen [2]. "What's your name, kiddo?" Crowley asked.

"Ben," the boy said, with a scowl that implied he wasn't going to answer to any cutesy nicknames, no sir [3]. "And if you're going to tell me how life would be better if I just smiled at people more and was polite and shit, stuff it." He glared through the doorway in what was almost certainly Aziraphale's direction.

Crowley blinked. "But that is good advice," he said, "and I ought to know. Do you have any idea how appalling it is to be smiled at constantly?"

The boy stared at him, open-mouthed, looking the way boys more often looked when he was standing in for Aziraphale with a bit of angelic intervention from on high [4], and Crowley had to stop himself from glancing over his shoulder to check that his wings were still neatly folded out of sight. The boy grabbed his hand and pumped it enthusiastically, grinning. "Thank you, sir!" he said, and bolted down the street. He skidded to a halt in front of what looked like a law enforcement recruitment station and vanished inside.

Sighing in befuddlement, Crowley went to haul Aziraphale out of the soup kitchen himself.

* * *

[1] The soup was chicken and rice; Aziraphale knew that Crowley would be on the lookout for fish.

[2] More than most teenaged boys, even.

[3] Crowley assumed the name under protest was Benji, although it wasn't.

[4] Crowley had been known to interpret "on high" in interesting ways, especially during the opium craze in the late eighteenth century.


End file.
